Good point, John. The medscape article statement, "Unlike some NMDA antagonists that cause significant side effects" .... certainly does NOT apply to memantine.
Memantine's good side effect profile is borne out by a decade of experience in Europe.
Also, forgive the redundancy, but i want to repeat the REASON WHY memantine is uniquely different from "NMDA antagonists that cause significant side effects."
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Here's a clear explanation excerpted from a post contributed by John McCarthy:
Memantine is a compound belonging to a class of agents called NMDA receptor antagonists that appear to have broad potential to protect nerve cells from injury.
Activation of the NMDA receptor plays a major role in a number of acute and chronic medical conditions, including stroke, traumatic brain injury, neuropathic pain, and dementia. In these conditions, damaged neurons release excessive amounts of glutamate, causing a flow of toxic levels of calcium into neighboring neurons through NMDA receptor regulated channels.
Memantine's mechanism of action appears to be unique among NMDA receptor antagonists under development. Other NMDA receptor antagonists either prevent glutamate from binding to the NMDA receptor, or block the NMDA receptor channel for relatively long periods of time.
Because normal functioning of the NMDA receptor is essential to the way in which human beings move, think, and sense their environment, blocking the channel for long periods of time can produce profound psychotic side effects.
Memantine appears to block the flow of excessive calcium into nerve cells for short periods of time with little impairment of normal function.
Because of Memantine's oral availability and lack of serious side effects, NTII has initially targeted its development to chronic neurological conditions.
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John's source was NTII's announcement of the Ph II diabetic neuropathy trial.
prnewswire.com
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On NTII's website, at ntii.com
there's a similar (longer) good discussion of conditions that cause excessive activation of NMDA receptors -- and the mechanism of memantine as an NMDA receptor antagonist.
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This is not my field, but if i hear it enough, stated in enough different ways, it starts to sink in ...
And I have a personal reason for pursuing the subject --to find the therapy for diabetic neuropathy that has the least side effects.
Cheryl
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